According to Alibaba's prospectus, the company generates more than 80 percent of its total revenue from online advertising, transaction commissions and online shop rentals.
The business model has made it rather difficult for Alibaba to control the source and quality of the products sold by registered merchants on its many platforms, industry experts said.
What is more, the experts noted that further growth for the e-commerce market from its present size is becoming increasingly difficult. Ma is widely seen to be shifting the focus of Alibaba's business to financial services by leveraging on its large customer base.
Yi Huanhuan, head of the research department of Hongyuan Securities Co Ltd based in Beijing, said: "Ma is making long-term arrangements for the development of the group. After all, I think the explosive growth period of Alibaba's e-commerce business sector is over, while there is huge potential in Ma's online finance business."
Several law firms in the United States have accused Alibaba of making misleading statements and concealed the news about regulatory scrutiny before its IPO in September, as the SAIC noted a closed-door conference in July with Taobao's top executive, criticizing the latter's efforts to combat fake products.
Ma regains rich list top spot
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Chairman Jack Ma regained his spot as Asia's richest person on the back of a higher valuation for the company's finance affiliate ahead of a stock sale that will also create a dozen new billionaires.
Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co, which owns payments processor Alipay, is valued at about $50 billion, according to sources close to the operation.
Ant Financial is weighing a private placement before going public in 2016, and details are yet to be finalized.
The latest valuation for Ant Financial boosted Ma's fortune by about $10 billion to $36.4 billion as of Friday in New York, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The new billionaires from the bigger valuation include the e-commerce giant's Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Lu and Chief People Officer Lucy Peng.
Lu and Peng, both co-founders of Alibaba, each has a fortune valued at about $1.8 billion.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263 Registration Number: 130349 
